With legwork completed, chopper unit ready to get down to business in Taegu
By Franklin Fisher, Taegu
bureau chief
Franklin Fisher / Stars and Stripes
An MH-47E Chinook heavy assault helicopter of Echo Company, 160th Special Operations
Aviation Regiment, awaits further reassembly in June at a hangar at K-2 Air Base, Taegu,
South Korea. |
TAEGU, South Korea — The elite Army helicopter unit that moved
recently to Taegu has about finished its set-up phase and is ready to swing into normal
operations.
“It’s ‘Game on,’” said First Sgt. Jeffery
McCloud of Echo Company, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The regimental
nickname is the “Night Stalkers.”
The company is equipped to fly long-distance, commando-style
infiltration missions using its six high-tech MH-47E Chinook heavy assault helicopters.
It moved from Fort Campbell, Ky., to K-2 Air Base outside Taegu this
summer. K-2 is on the site of commercial Taegu Airport.
“We’re going to begin to train harder, begin assuming the
mission here in Korea,” said Capt. Garret Messner, the company’s operations
officer.
The company will be formally welcomed to K-2 in ceremonies Tuesday
morning at the company hangar, according to Dennis K. Bohannon, a spokesman for the
Army’s 19th Theater Support Command in Taegu.
Among guests will be the commander of the U.S. Special Operations
Command, Air Force Gen. Charles R. Holland. The command is headquartered at MacDill Air
Force Base, Fla., Bohannon said.
Later on Tuesday, the company is scheduled to receive the last of its
six Chinooks. Its aircraft began arriving in late June.
The unit will be at the disposal of the top military commander in
South Korea as an air arm with the special training and equipment needed to put special
operations troops in and out of combat covertly, especially at night.
It was formed about a year ago to be sent to South Korea. It will
have about 100 military personnel and 50 contractors.
To help support it, the Air Force formed a new unit, the 607th
Support Squadron, now based at K-2. The squadron will have about 90 Air Force personnel at
K-2 and another 15 at Kimhae, farther south. Some 350 contractors also will serve the
squadron.
The Department of Defense is spending about $13 million to maintain
the company in South Korea.
McCloud said the company had received enthusiastic and fast-paced
support from within the Army, Air Force and elsewhere during its relocation, and
Tuesday’s ceremony will be partly a chance to say thanks.
“A lot of people did some very hard work to get us here, and
it’s to recognize those people and to recognize that, ‘Here’s the product
that you worked hard on,’” McCloud said.
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